Vroomba Roomba!

5) Doubles as an automatic fresh-coffee delivery service

4) No more incriminating trail of Cheetos after an all-night server restore

3) Attach wireless GPS device to Roomba and record path taken with mapping software. Use the results as cable layout diagram *

2) Roving wireless access points1) Two Roombas, two words: ROOMBA RACES!

(* This one might actually work.)

Special thanks to DC Dave, David Forney, Kelly Gosh, Gary Hoke, William Kujawa, Gregory Mamayek, Steve Matheson, Wayne Maurer, Jeff Murdoch, Nick Nielsen and Doug Whitaker for their submissions. Clean up with our full dust bag of reader submissions.

Remember the saying, "Everything old is new again"? We think it's time to revise that to, "Everything good never really gets old." Check out the sparkling new Gigabyte GA-81915P Duo-A motherboard, a screaming Pentium 4 processor capable of hogging up as much as 4 GB of RAM.Compare this with the Vector Graphics Vector 1, an Intel 8080A, 2-MHz machine that sported 1 KB of RAM and cost $895 back in 1976.

Behold the power of the basic PC card slot. Like Limburger, it just smells better with age.

Find more golden oldies here: oldcomputers.net

Just when you thought only megastars had enough juice to merit their own custom editions of the Apple iPod, along comes Network Computing. Not to be outdone by a bunch of lemon-crazed, sunglass-wearing Irishmen, we created our own NWC Star Edition of the iPod ... we call it FritzPod, after our own beloved publisher.

Currently in Photoshop-only format, the FritzPod may never reach a store near you. But if you'd like a wallpaper version, you're welcome to it!Tim Gesner
• Attach a red light, a few Radiation Hazard stickers and a bullhorn playing a taped message concerning "Dangerous levels of Radiation in the building" will ensure enough bandwith on the network for you to really kick ass playing Halo 2 online
• Negates all the complaints about the scattered sunflower seeds and peanut shells around your workstation attracting rats!

Judy Gilbert
• Cleans up all of those "spare" server parts. Don't want anyone to see those!

Hymie Schmidlap
• set the roomba under the raised floor of the computer department, turning the whole room into a giant "Pachinko" machine. The IT personnel can then place bets on where the thing stops. Or whichever computer or desk it stops nearest, WINS. (better than a sports pool)and management knows nothing.

Jeff Brittain
• Automatically suck up and eliminate antiquated equipment that is otherwise impossible to remove from Fixed Assests list.

Scott Winberg
• Install food tray for safe way to get food and caffeine to frazzled techies and adminsSteve Margison
• Attach whiteboard and use to replace email system whenever Exchange crashes.
• Here's a thought. Use it to clean under the desks so when IT has to get at the back of a PC we don't have to crawl through dust bunnies and pretzel crumbs.

• Mount Wi-Fi camera to top, monitor whether people are at their desks or not.
• Turn loose in office to collect all the dropped connections.

Daniel W. McAndrew
• (E)ventual (S)hinola (D)etector Device (Doesn't necessarily clean it up.....)

Jeff Meadows
• Use it to pick up the Pizza and Cake crumbs when you hear the boss coming!
• Tidy up your co-workers cubicle, while they are away of course.
• Add a cup holder, food tray and coin slot to start your own snack delivery service.

Pat Gallagher
• For those still using 10Base2 you can keep the romba around to clean up all the bits that fall out of the unterminated end of the cable.

Ronnie Manning
• (Insert name here) isn't going to be the dorkiest thing in the IT department anymore.Rich Peters
• Set filter to pick up all but bread crumbs. Then leave conspicuous trails to rest room and coffee machines.

JW
• "We use it to identify people for downsizing. Everyone it touches is swept up in the process."

Kraig DeMatteis

• Attaching a cattle pod could motivate sleepy programmers

Allan Albert
Here is a "4 point plan"
1. Attach wireless Access Point to roomba.
2. Justify expense of roomba as part of "Wireless A.C.E Project" (Amplification and Coverage Expansion). 3. Get Senior Executive (who insists on having wireless even if they just stay in their cubby) to "Champion" this "Forward" plan and sign off on expense.
4. Sit back and enjoy the show ;-)

Robert Prince
• Put a model of the Millennium Falcon glued to it, and fly far far away........tOM Trottier
• Improve suction to suck up managers who suck.
• Train to supply power to servers when power fails.
• Train to deliver hot coffee hourly.
• Use to replace credit-sucking managers.

Mike Harris
• Junior programmers would no longer be responsible for cleaning up the mess when someone trips over the bit bucket.

Kory Stone
• Attach a life size stand up of your self to it. Even though your network has a 99.99% uptime, use the random action and people will walk by and see you bouncing off the walls as usual. Use the circular romba pattern when the server is down.

Greg Lara
• We'll send it out prior to a new desktop rollout to hunt down the uder-desk dust bunnies that we'd otherwise inhale ourselves.

Guy Bass
• Label Roomba as "Internet Abuse Sniffer" and let him go!!!Guy Bass
• On the Robot Paste the face of Fred, who does "Managing By Walking Around" and give Fred a package.

David Forney

• Juanita, the woman from housekeeping, no longer needs to plug in the 40 amp, circa 1950, vacuum cleaner with the intermittant short to the circuit feeding IT.
Easily rigged with a hobby store remote control and then utilized to thwart users from walking the halls of IT asking random questions. "THAT THING IS RABID!!"
Two Roombas, two wordsROOMBA RACES

Gary Hoke
• Executive decision maker attachment comes in handy during meetings.
• Roving wireless access points.
• Helps deliver pink slips to employees who previously worked for the Postal Service.

William Kujawa
• Attach wireless GPS device to Roomba and record path taken with mapping software. Use the results as cable layout diagram.

Kelly Gosh
• Tape a legal pad on top; now we really CAN deliver files wirelessly but economically!
Internet cam in the CEO's office.
Better • Internet cam watching the coffee pot.
No trail of Cheetos after an all-night server restore.John Beaman
• Keep those overnight guys entertained with all the hacking possibilities...

Jeff Murdoch
• (The DaRk sIDe): Automated survellience of those lazy, no-good-nik developers!

• Automatic, continual fresh coffee delivery service. You could even tell it how often it should stop by to offer the elixir of life.

Doug Whitaker
• New mode of transportation through building for athletically-challenged techs.
Set carpet type to 'Dense End-Users' and turn it loose!!

Patty Groeneveld
• there are already too many criteria "sucking" up the IT budget. Why would I throw a vacuum in there?

Craig Foote
• Teach it to refill and deliver mugs of coffee to programmers.Bob Kokinda

• Actually clean • hopefully more than the human staff does...........

DC Dave
• Great for handing out "pink slips" after a merger or Aquistion.

Nick Nielsen
• No more pulling the fish and pushing the cable...Roomba sucks it right through!

Kristopher Ting
• I don't know about your lab, but every corner of mine has dust bunnies the size of jackrabbits!

Dave Kausch

• In a word: WebCamErich Huemoeller
• Attach weapons and a little extra armor and you've got a first generation version of MechWarrior in real life.
• It's the random staff reducer. Attach a pink slip to the top and whoever's office it gets to first is the unlucky sucker of the day.

Steve Matheson
• Just another support tech roaming aimlessly and eating potato chips off the floor.

Erich Huemoeller
• It'll lower workers comp claims from people tripping over all the pink slips on the floor.

Henry Rohlfs
• Department pet that cleans up its own mess.

David G. Miller
• It will give the dust bunnies something to ride around on after they hijack it.Dave Baldwin
• No more ants the day after every big install/pizza party.

wayne maurer
• Stick a small table on it and get an instant waiter.• A cheaper version of the Segway.

• Start new Vacumm Surfing Trend.
• Convince management that it is a backup mail delivery system. Paste a large basket on it and just throw all the interoffice mail in it.

Greg Eytcheson
• Two words: Roomba Wars!

Bob Vandenberg
• It can pick up all those potato chip crumbs to hid the fact that you were eating in the server room again to escape.

gregory mamayek
• NEW wireless hub

• NEW lunch to cubicle service
• Who needs to kick dog anymore. Roomba anybody?
• Trip co-workers ... oops
• Floor hockey, anybody?
• Portable rack @ servers
• Portable water cooler

• Moving waste basket for challenging basketball shots
• Cockroach hunter ... seek & destroy (plays Metallica's same tune when spots foe)
• Annoy co-workers with Bose Acoustimass speaker (hear that Roomba bass humm)0